GSK investment to create jobs, opportunities
Leading international pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has announced it will invest $60 million to expand its largest Australian facility at Boronia in Melbourne’s east, creating 58 new highly-skilled jobs by 2017.
Minister for Technology Gordon Rich-Phillips said the Victorian Coalition Government was supporting GSK to expand its manufacturing and new drug development activities in Victoria.
'This investment by GSK is of major significance to Victoria's pharmaceutical industry, and the Victorian economy,' Mr Rich-Phillips said.
GSK's Boronia manufacturing plant is the company's largest site globally for the production of sterile and non-sterile liquid products that utilise state-of-the-art 'blow-fill-seal' (BFS) technology.
The investment will allow GSK to potentially double its current BFS manufacturing capacity by installing new BFS production technology, and will also support the creation of a pilot scale industrialisation facility for the development of new powder and sterile liquid pharmaceutical products.
The industrialisation facility will support the continuation of GSK's successful R&D collaboration with the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences in developing next generation pharmaceutical products.
GSK also plans to make the new industrialisation facility accessible for local companies for contract manufacturing, further supporting skills development and technology transfer opportunities for Victorian researchers and companies.